Daddy's Little Girl
by CanadianChick07
Summary: Tag to 5x04. Callen's daughter comes home from University and finds out about the video. He ends up sharing what he knows about his family, with her, for the first time.


Taylor Vandenhoven sat in a friend's car outside of her father's house, not exactly sure what she was about to find when she walked inside. It worried her a little, she wouldn't lie on that fact, but she knew someone had to check on him and it would be better for his own daughter to do it at this point in the day. Sam, he would probably kick out and tell him he was fine. Hetty, he would probably skirt around the truth. Taylor, well, he kind of had to be up front about his family, because ultimately, it was hers as well.

She knew she'd probably walking into a gun if she opened the door, but she didn't really care, because knocking wasn't her style. Sure enough, there was a gun pointed at the door by her father. "Really?" She smirked, as he lowered it.

"Not that I'm happy to see my daughter, but you could have let me know you were coming," Callen said, tucking the gun in the waistband of his jeans.

She smiled. "And do what you did to me all my high school years by just showing up, unannounced. Payback's a bitch, Dad. And Christ, Daddy, if you are ever going to have a woman over here, get some furniture or go to a motel at least!" she exclaimed, the one time she called him 'daddy.' And she actually had sent him a text, letting him know she was on her way but obviously he hadn't checked his phone.

Callen was still sitting, amused at his daughter and her way of making him smile. He chuckled a little. "What if I don't want furniture?"

Taylor shook her head as she planted a kiss on his cheek and sat in his lap. "You need furniture. So I don't have to sit here like I'm 5, instead of 20."

"20 and supposed to be in South Carolina at school." She smirked and he narrowed his eyes, trying to get that parent look down. "Who called you?"

"Nobody," Taylor lied.

Callen shook his head. "You are really good at pretending to be a horrible liar. I know you are a really good liar; you get that from your mother. Who called you?"

"Hetty. I was already at the airport."

Callen glanced at his daughter. "Last time I checked it wasn't Christmas time, nor was it Christmas break."

"Cole's getting deployed in two days to Afghanistan for three months, at a minimum and we haven't exactly seen much of each other this year and probably won't see each other at Christmas time," Taylor explained.

He sighed. This is why he was so against his daughter dating her much older SEAL boyfriend. The long distance relationship, the strain it put on all relationships, the heartache and not knowing if your loved one was coming home on a plane or in a body bag and the enormous amount of time you could go without seeing one another. "Your coach let you come out here for that?"

Taylor shrugged. She was played soccer for the University of South Carolina. "I more or less told my coaches I was coming out to California."

"Cole didn't tell you where he's being deployed to?"

"No. And he can't. Afghanistan was all he told me which is really vague and basically means anywhere in the world," Taylor said. "One more year of this long distance shit. Being a SEAL girlfriend ain't for the faint of heart, that's for sure. And then add long distance to it from South Carolina to California. Good Lord."

Callen shook his head. His little girl was growing up. "One more year and you will have your degree. Wow. Does Skylar know you are in town?"

"She knows I'm in town," Taylor said. Her aunt, Skylar, had raised her from when she was little until she moved to Columbia, South Carolina. "She said she'd fly out for a game soon."

"So you are talking to her again?"

Taylor laughed. "I don't want to say karma's a bitch, but it really is but honestly, I've never been so happy when she called to say that her and David broke up. And he cheated on her. She is kind of understanding why I still have a relationship with Ryan and she respects that now and doesn't say anything, because ultimately he is basically my step-dad and whether you like or not, probably raised me more than you did."

"So Skylar and your mother do share some sibling tendencies," Callen noted. Rianne Vandenhoven was known for being a 'serial cheater'.

She glared at him. "Skylar and mom are nothing alike. Nothing. What were you watching before I came in?"

Callen played it again and Taylor leaned her head back on her father's shoulder and watched the tape play. "So, that's my grandfather?" She asked after the tape played.

"His name is Nikita Alexander Reznikov."

"How did you find out about it?"

He looked at her. "That's classified."

"Bull shit. I know Arkady Kolcheck is involved, because Hetty told me so, so was he the one to tell you? You've never told me anything about who your parents were. I know a little bit about the Comescu's from what I've put together and from what Mom has told me."

"That's because I never knew anything about them. I know that my mother, Clara Callen, had worked for the CIA at some time. Her father had worked for the OSS, before it came the CIA and that's how the blood feud started. I don't know how I got to the United States when my mother was killed on that beach in Romania. But according to Arkady, my father was a Russian Major who helped Michael Reinhardt escape from East Germany."

"What happened to your father?"

He shrugged. "That's for me to find out. The last Hetty knew, he was jailed in Siberia in the 70's. Michael Reinhardt was the one who kept tabs on me, like a real father would, until my father got a chance to come over here, but he never did."

Taylor nodded. "Where does Arkady come into this?"

"I found a picture of Arkady Kolcheck and Michael, before he was Michael. How do you know Arkady?"

"He came to check on me after you got shot on the Fifth of May. He knocked on my front door, two days later and introduced himself as an 'old friend of Callen's'," she imitated Arkady's Russian accent. "I didn't know you had friends outside of NCIS, Dad. He's checked in on me a couple more times. More recently, a year ago when he showed up at a soccer game. South Carolina vs. Duke. He left before I could figure it out and talk to him. And I know the man knows my mother and for the life of me, he won't tell me what he knows."

Callen nodded. "I'm not surprised to know that he found out that you existed and I'm not surprised that he's checked up on you throughout the years. He's a good friend. That game versus Duke, what was the date?"

"November 2012?"

Callen racked his brain trying to think of when and what was happening at then it hit him. "Sidorov. That's why he checked in on you. He wanted to make sure Sidorov didn't know about you."

"Who else knows about me out of your," she put quotations around the word, "associates."

"Arkady, and I didn't tell him so I blame that one on your mother and a man named Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He's a NCIS agent in Washington and I trust him with your life. If I ever tell you to go there, I mean it. And the former NCIS Director who was killed in the line of duty, Jenny Shepard."

Taylor stood up and looked at her cell phone to make sure Cole hadn't texted her. "What about Tracy Keller?"

"How do you know about her?" His mouth had dropped at this point, well, it had dropped when she first mentioned the name of his ex-wife.

She smirked. "Not saying. Did she know about me? You were married to her after all."

Callen groaned and was going to kill whoever gave Taylor that little gem of information. "No. She never knew about you. Your mother and I agreed from a very young age we wanted to protect you as much as possible and that meant keeping you away from our professional lives." There was no mention of Taylor in his NCIS file and very few people at NCIS knew about her. Obviously the core group knew, Hetty, Sam, Kensi, Deeks, Nell, Eric and Nate, but he tried to keep Taylor away from his life at NCIS, although past events had rendered that plan futile. Sam only found out about Taylor when he had to take her to the hospital after she blew an ACL, when she was around 15; both Taylor and Sam were beyond pissed about the sequence of events of that day and refused to talk about it. Callen never found out the full story. Kensi got her first introduction to Callen's daughter at a soccer game, because Callen had promised Taylor he'd show up and he made Kensi drive him from the hospital to there, it was also Kensi's first week of transfering to the team and she couldn't really say no to the senior field agent. Deeks, met Taylor at a food truck one afternoon in Santa Monica. He had been out shopping with another Detective buddy and Callen and Taylor were having lunch. Callen never did find out about Deeks' rescuing Taylor from a party, drunk as a skunk, one night. Nell's first meeting with Taylor was when Nell had to pick her up from Santa Monica High after Taylor got suspended; it was also Nell's third day on the job (if you were to ask Nell, she'd say it was probably the most nerve racking thing she had done, while at NCIS). They had a standing coffee date for Saturday at 9:15 a.m., each at a different location, for all of Taylor's senior year. Eric didn't find out about Taylor until much later. She had shown up at a team function for Callen to sign a test she had flunked and introduced herself to Eric as 'Callen's daughter.' He was still scared of Taylor, to this date. Nate... well, Nate had walked into Callen's ICU room at Pacific Beach Medical after he had gotten shot on the fifth of May and seen a teenage girl sitting there, doing homework. He almost fell over when she told him that the man laying there, connected to tubes and wires, was her father and she hated his guts (yet was still in the hospital room). Nate and Taylor had many more sessions after that. As for Hetty? Callen never really did know when the Duchess of Deception first met his daughter.

Taylor tapped at a text away to her best friend from high school who was going to Stanford and let her know that she was in town and when she looked up she had her father looking at her. "What?"

"Now I want to know what your mother has on me? What did she tell you about the Comescu's?"

Taylor walked around the sparse living room. "They run a human family trafficking business in Romania. You rescued Hetty from them and killed Alexa Comescu. They most likely want me dead if they ever find me because of a blood feud."

She knew way too much for her own good. "Go on."

"I know about Sidorov. I know about the nuclear weapons. I don't know much other than that but I know they were on American soil. I know the first time my mother met Henrietta Lange she was 26 and working for the CIA and the meeting was in Toronto, Ontario."

"That's all?" Callen asked. That was way more than what he wanted his daughter to know. And what bugged him is obviously his ex and his daughter were talking again for her to have this information. And that really bugged him. Royally pissed him off.

"My mother may be a mother fucking bitch and a traitor to this country for going rogue but don't discount her knowledge. If you ever need help, she's the person to call, whether you like it or not." She hadn't gotten all of the information from her mother. She had another person looking out of her in the CIA, named Kyle Willis. Callen knew Kyle, from way back in their days at the agency, but he had no idea Kyle was keeping tabs on his daughter.

Callen just smiled at his daughter. She really was a product of both of her parents. Taylor definitely had the best and worst qualities of her mother and himself. She had her mother's temper, and his 'lone-wolf' characteristic as Hetty or Sam often reminded him of. There were a few instances in Taylor's teenage years that she just simply went off the grid, because she could, when she hated the world. What he wasn't sure, is where Taylor got her loyalty from. Callen, nor Rianne, were really loyal to their respective agencies while employed by them. "Come here," he said.

Taylor went and sat on his lap again. "What?"

"I was just thinking that I can't believe that you are this old and living on the other side of the country and what a wonderful young woman you have become, despite your mother and I not raising you. Cole is a very lucky guy."

Taylor just looked at him. "I appreciate the sentiment, I really do. And I will always be your little girl. Maybe it's today's events and them catching up with you but who are you and what have you done with the real Callen?"

Callen started laughing at his daughter. "Go. Go, see Cole and spend some time with him before he deploys."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek before getting up and heading for the door. "You sure you are alright, Dad?"

He smiled at his daughter. "I'm good. And make sure you see Deeks before you leave. If he finds out you were in town and didn't tell him or see him, he's going to pout for days and I will have to hear about it."

Taylor laughed. "I will," she assured her father. Deeks and her had a good friendship and she really liked the Detective. He had gotten her out of a lot of jams when she wasn't such a good child and been an ear to turn to when she had no one else. "I always have been his favorite juvenile delinquent."

Callen covered his face with his hand and shook his head when he heard that last statement. "Alright. Have fun and if I don't see you before you leave for Columbia again, I love you."

"Love you too, Dad," Taylor said and walked out. It was a little strange for her to hear that from her Dad, as he wasn't really the one to show emotions or express them and that had been a huge wedge in their relationship. But as she got into her friend's car, she decided she was okay with being close with her Dad. In fact, she actually liked it.


End file.
